Nice and Nasty Theory of Mind in Preschool Children: Nature and Nurture

Experimental research suggests the differentiation of ‘nice’ and ‘nasty’ theory of mind (ToM). Over 5000 parents from the Twins Early Development Study reported on nice (e.g., being considerate) and nasty (e.g., blaming others) behaviours following their twins’ second, third, and fourth birthdays. Factor analyses yielded four factors and it was proposed that these related to prosocial behaviour necessitating ToM (Nice ToM), antisocial behaviour necessitating ToM (Nasty ToM), and prosocial and antisocial behaviour not necessitating ToM (Nice and Nasty). Interscale correlations, gender differences, and their relationship with language were consistent with this distinction. Both ToM scales showed moderate heritability and significant environmental influences (shared and nonshared). Bivariate analyses indicated somewhat distinct aetiological influences on Nice ToM versus Nasty ToM. However, further research is needed to confirm whether this distinction reflects interactions between ToM and temperament, or two underlying genetic and cognitively distinct ToM abilities.     

Groupthink and Project Performance: The Influence of Personal Traits and Interpersonal Ties

This study explores whether the negative impact of “groupthink concurrence‐seeking behavior” (GTB) on business process reengineering (BPR) projects is affected by group members personal traits and interpersonal ties within the group. To this purpose we conduct and present the results of a longitudinal controlled field experiment over 18 BPR projects lasting 3 months and involving 18 teams comprising 71 first‐year MBA students. The main contribution of this study is twofold. First, we explicitly consider and measure the core construct of groupthink phenomenon: that is, GTB. Existing organizational behavior literature has, contrarily, considered only its causes, symptoms, and outcomes. Second, we show evidence that GTB does have a negative impact on group performance in BPR project settings. In this regards, results also indicate that while perceived control, conscientiousness and interpersonal evaluation mitigate the negative impact of GTB on group project performance, confidence, and previous relationships amplify this negative impact, even if they have a direct positive effect on performance. Thanks to the findings of this study, we are able to provide valuable suggestions to managers in charge of BPR projects for ensuring effective performance of project teams and controlling for potential obstacles due to GTB.     

Does business model affect accounting choices? An empirical analysis of European listed companies

Financial accounting research increasingly includes business model (BM) constructs, but the ability of financial reporting to capture BM characteristics has not been verified. This study empirically explores the links between BMs and accounting choices by clustering a sample of 103 European listed companies according to an innovative, nonlinear algorithm (self-organizing map) that uses pertinent industrial, strategic, governance, and financial variables to uncover different dimensions of a BM. The authors investigate accounting choices (accounting measurement, accounting treatment, and disclosure level) by companies that belong to the different identified BMs. The analysis of the relations between different company BMs and their accounting choices indicates no significant connections, which offers empirical confirmation of the criticisms regarding the inability of financial reporting to represent (or even consider) a company’s BM. The results suggest further attempt to capture BM in financial reporting, which requires regulators to establish accounting standards that acknowledge the value creation processes of an entity and incentivize managers to represent those processes.     

Composite Indicator of Social Inclusion for European Countries

Social inclusion is one of the key challenges of the European Union (EU) Sustainable Development Strategy. We use four indicators from EU policies to measure social inclusion for the 27 member countries of Europe. In particular, we aggregate the four indicators in a multiplicative composite indicator via a DEA-BoD approach with weights determined endogenously with proportion constraints. We obtain a score of social inclusion that allows us to grade the 27 EU countries from 2006 to 2010. In this way, we highlight the specific role played by the four indicators in determining improvements and deteriorations of social inclusion during the European phase of the financial and economic crisis.     

Religious multiculturalism and intercultural education: Reflections on the educational experiences at the Waldensian Collegio della Santa Trinità in Torre Pellice (Italy)

In this paper the author reflects on the educational experience of students attending the Waldensian high school in Torre Pellice (Italy), drawing on the findings of her own ethnographic fieldwork in the Waldensian valleys. The original research aim was to explore the meaning that education and schooling traditionally have for this religious minority group, and their relevance to the latter's identity construction as minority persons, as well as Italian citizens. But additional findings emerged which allow for an interpretation of the Collegio della Santa Trinità as a place where intercultural education has also been achieved. Fifteen fifth year high school students describe in in-depth interviews how this denominational high school is both open to diversity and attentive to a pluralism of views. As a consequence the school is perceived as providing its students not only with high quality education but also with a distinctive cultural perspective built around the common concerns of its students.     

Intersensory Perception at Birth: Newborns Match Nonhuman Primate Faces and Voices

Previous studies have shown that infants, including newborns, can match previously unseen and unheard human faces and vocalizations. More recently, it has been reported that infants as young as 4 months of age also can match the faces and vocalizations of other species raising the possibility that such broad multisensory perceptual tuning is present at birth. To test this possiblity, we investigated whether newborns can match monkey facial and vocal gestures. Using a paired preference procedure, in Experiment 1 we presented pairs of different visible monkey calls in silence and then in the presence of one or the other corresponding audible call and compared preferences across the silent and in‐sound conditions. In Experiment 2 , we presented the same monkey visible calls but this time together with a tone analog of the natural calls in the in‐sound trials. We found that newborns looked longer at the matching visible call in the in‐sound condition than in the silent condition in both experiments. These findings indicate that multisensory perceptual tuning is so broad at birth that it enables newborns to integrate the facial and vocal gestures of other primates and that integration is based on newborns’ detection of audio‐visual temporal synchrony relations.     

NORMS OF PUNISHMENT: EXPERIMENTS WITH STUDENTS AND THE GENERAL POPULATION

Norms of cooperation and punishment differ across societies, but also within a single society. In an experiment with two subject pools sharing the same geographical and cultural origins, we show that opportunities for peer punishment increase cooperation among students but not in the general population. In previous studies, punishment magnified the differences across societies in people's ability to cooperate. Here, punishment reversed the order: with punishment, students cooperate more than the general population while they cooperate less without it. (JEL C72, C90, Z13)     

Play and learn: Children's agency through the COVID-19 pandemic in Mozambique

Social distancing, one of the measures adopted in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, profoundly impacted on the lives of children. The consequences were, however, not homogenous. By focusing on the daily practices of 41 Mozambican children aged 3–10, we consider how differences in socioeconomic backgrounds led children to respond to the social restrictions in ways that made sense to them. Inspired by Abebe (2019), we identify how the interruptions of daily routines enabled specific instances of agency on children's part. These, we argue, produce new forms of continuity.     

Semiautomatic robust regression clustering of international trade data

The purpose of this paper is to show in regression clustering how to choose the most relevant solutions, analyze their stability, and provide information about best combinations of optimal number of groups, restriction factor among the error variance across groups and level of trimming. The procedure is based on two steps. First we generalize the information criteria of constrained robust multivariate clustering to the case of clustering weighted models. Differently from the traditional approaches which are based on the choice of the best solution found minimizing an information criterion (i.e. BIC), we concentrate our attention on the so called optimal stable solutions. In the second step, using the monitoring approach, we select the best value of the trimming factor. Finally, we validate the solution using a confirmatory forward search approach. A motivating example based on a novel dataset concerning the European Union trade of face masks shows the limitations of the current existing procedures. The suggested approach is initially applied to a set of well known datasets in the literature of robust regression clustering. Then, we focus our attention on a set of international trade datasets and we provide a novel informative way of updating the subset in the random start approach. The Supplementary material, in the spirit of the Special Issue, deepens the analysis of trade data and compares the suggested approach with the existing ones available in the literature.

     

Combining Achievement and Well-Being in the Assessment of Education Systems

Countries’ education systems are often compared using academic achievement measures from large-scale assessments like PISA. These exercises are criticized because achievement is but one of the aims of education and comparisons don’t take into account each country’s socio-demographic composition, cultural and historical background and organizational features. We use data from OECD countries to assess countries that can serve as models for education policy to promote both high mathematics achievement and student well-being. We adopt a novel methodological approach based on imputation methods to simultaneously estimate mathematics achievement and students’ sense of belonging while taking into account countries’ socio-demographic and organizational features. Results indicate that, in general, education systems have been able to organize and use their resources to promote either mathematics performance or student well-being, but not both simultaneously. The East Asian approach to education is successful in promoting student achievement in mathematics while Austria, Norway and Spain have greater success in promoting students’ sense of belonging.